AL Trade deadline

Trade deadline time in the AL after series 10 games are done (Aug. 28). So don't start series 11 games until everyone has caught up and all trades are in.

So far one trade has been made between Nicholas and Doug. Suzuki for Delgado were the main two players in the deal. Someone add a comment or new post with the full trade details

Trading Block

AL: Mike (Toronto) is looking to deal C. Guillen (ss), J. Hiarston (2B), L. Ford (OF) and posibbly Sabitha (SP). Also have a good minor league pitcher Loaza up for trade.

Let me know.

NL Stat Update

Chicago has clinched first in the east and Colorado has clinched a playoff berth. Florida, San Franciso and St. Louis have been eliminated. Here's the remaining races:

   NL STANDINGS
                                                   
   East          GP   W   L   Pct  GB
(y)Chicago       32  23   9  .719   -
                                              
   West          GP   W   L   Pct  GB
(1)Colorado      32  21  11  .656   -
   Los Angeles   29  16  12  .552   3
                                                    
   Wildcard      GP   W   L   Pct  GB
(3)Los Angeles   29  16  12  .552   -
(2)Milwaukee     32  17  15  .531   1
   Atlanta       29  13  15  .448   3

(y)- clinched division. (#)- magic number.

Proposed schedule for next season

We've discussed it a bit already but I thought I'd post on it. I propose for our next season that we drop the two dummy teams from each league and extend the season to 50 games. With only our six teams in each league we'd drop to one division in each league from the current two. The dummy teams would still remain out of our player selection pool.

This will have the benefit of not having to play meaningless games against dummy teams and will return us to a balanced schedule. The top 4 teams in each league will qualify for the playoffs to give everyone a shot at the post season and because a short 50 game schedule in baseball, even though it is the longest we have played, will still not be enough to determine the top team.

The 50 game schedule would consist of 10 games against each other team and would breakdown as follows:

• one 3-game home series
• one 3-game away series
• one 2-game home series
• one 2-game away series

After 25 games we'd break for an all-star game. We could have the winning league in the all-star game decide who gets home field advantage for the World Series or it could go to a coin toss or just alternate each year.

AL Stat Update

NL Stat Update

Here it is.

NL Stat Update

   NL STANDINGS
                                                     
   East          GP   W   L   Pct  GB   RF  RA  exW-L
(3)Chicago       28  20   8  .714   -  149 115  18-10
   Milwaukee     30  15  15  .500   6  109 118  14-16
   Atlanta       27  12  14  .444   7  129 100  17-10  
   Florida       28   7  21  .250  13   75 144   6-22
                                                     
   West          GP   W   L   Pct  GB   RF  RA  exW-L
(8)Colorado      28  19   9  .679   -  173 118   19-9
   Los Angeles   27  16  10  .593   2  148 121  16-11
   St. Louis     30  13  17  .433   7  121 133  14-16
   San Francisco 28  10  18  .357   9  123 173   9-19
                                                     
   Wildcard      GP   W   L   Pct  GB
(6)Los Angeles   27  16  10  .593   -
(8)Milwaukee     30  15  15  .500   3
   Atlanta       27  12  14  .444   4
   St. Louis     30  13  17  .433   5
   San Francisco 28  10  18  .357   7
   Florida       28   7  21  .250  10
                                                     
(*)-magic number.  Any combination of wins by the first place team and 
loses by the second place team will clinch the division/wildcard.

The tie game between LA and Atlanta created an odd situation where Chicago's magic number applies to clinching first in the division over Atlanta and not Milwaukee (Chicago's magic number to clinch againts Milwaukee is "2"). The same thing applies to LA in the wildcard, LA needs a combination of wins and Atlanta loses totaling 6 to clinch a wildcard spot.

No team has clinched a playoff spot yet.

Blue Jays Photo of the Day

If you're looking for a little desktop wallpaper lovin' check out Aaron Reynold's "Photo of the day" gallery.

Aaron (Named for Hank) is regular contributor at the Batter's Box.

AL Stat Update

Another fresh posting of stats with the games from this weekend. If you look at the wildcard standings you'll see that this is the first time Mike has not held a playoff position (it's still early...).

 AL STANDINGS
  
 East          GP   W   L   Pct  GB   RF  RA  exW-L
*Detroit       17  10   7  .588   -   79  83    8-9 
 Boston        15   8   7  .533   1   77  72    8-7
 Toronto       17   8   9  .471   2   96  81   10-7
 Kansas City   17   2  15  .118   8   58 113   4-13 
  
 West          GP   W   L   Pct  GB   RF  RA  exW-L
*Texas         17  12   5  .706   -   97  61   12-5
 Los Angeles   15   8   7  .533   3   81  70    9-6
 Oakland       17   9   8  .529   3   86  77    9-8
 Minnesota     17   9   8  .529   3   74  93   7-10
  
 Wildcard      GP   W   L   Pct  GB
*Los Angeles   15   8   7  .533   -
*Boston        15   8   7  .533   -
*Oakland       17   9   8  .529   -
*Minnesota     17   9   8  .529   -
 Toronto       17   8   9  .471   1
 Kansas City   17   2  15  .118   7

AL Stat Update

Fresh off the press (Mike's computer), here's the AL stats. Click the post title or the permanent link on the left.

 AL STANDINGS

 East          GP   W   L   Pct  GB  RF  RA  exWP exW exL Dif
*Det (Dave)    15   9   6  .600   -  67  77  .431   6   9  +3
 Tor (Mike)    13   7   6  .538   1  87  66  .635   8   5  -1
 Bos (Nick A.) 13   7   6  .538   1  64  66  .485   6   7  +1
 KC            13   2  11  .154   6  48  86  .238   3  10  -1

 West          GP   W   L   Pct  GB  RF  RA  exWP exW exL Dif
*Tex (Doug)    13   8   5  .615   -  71  53  .642   8   5   0
 Min (Nick S.) 13   7   6  .538   1  62  68  .454   6   7  +1
 LAA (Norm)    15   8   7  .533   1  81  70  .572   9   6  -1
 Oak           13   6   7  .462   2  70  66  .529   7   6  -1

 Wildcard      GP   W   L   Pct  GB
*Tor (Mike)    13   7   6  .538   -
*Bos (Nick A.) 13   7   6  .538   -
*Min (Nick S.) 13   7   6  .538   -
*LAA (Norm)    15   8   7  .533   -
 Oak           13   6   7  .462   1
 KC            13   2  11  .154   5

Who's been lucky (or unlucky)?

Pythagorean expectation is a formula invented by Bill James to estimate how many games a baseball team "should" have won based on the number of runs they scored and allowed. The term is derived from the formula's resemblance to Pythagoras' formula to compute the length of the hypotenuse of a triangle from the lengths of its other two sides.

The basic formula is:

where Win% is the winning percentage generated by the formula. You can then multiply this by the number of games played by a team to compute how many wins one would expect them to win based on their runs scored and allowed.

Lets apply the formula to our current national league standings:

East          GP   W   L   Pct   RF   RA  exWP exW exL Dif
ChC (Mike)    26  18   8  .692  139  102  .650  17   9  +1
Atl (Norm)    25  12  13  .480  119   89  .641  16   9  -4
Mil (Nick S.) 26  12  14  .462   82   88  .465  12  14   0
Flo           26   6  20  .231   70  137  .207   5  21  +1

West          GP   W   L   Pct   RF   RA  exWP exW exL Dif
Col (Doug)    23  16   7  .696  139   98  .668  15   8  +1
LAD (Dave)    25  15  10  .600  137  111  .604  15  10   0
StL (Nick A.) 23  11  12  .478   95   99  .479  11  12   0
SF            26  10  16  .385  110  150  .350   9  17  +1

exWP: Expected winning percentage
exW: Expected wins, exL: Expected Losses

The theory compares quite nicely with our actual win loss records. What it does point out is something we've all known but now have irrifutable proof - Norm is very unlucky.

"1-2-3-4-5-6" Twins 13, Blue Jays 4

Batgirl has humourous look at last night’s shellacking of the Jays at the hands of the Twins.

Glaus and Overbay had back-to-back homers in the first, but other than that Towers fell apart in the fourth and the bullpen was just as bad.

NL Stat Update

Mike's got some new NL Stats. Everybody's still in the playoff hunt with two wildcard spots available. Grab it here or from the permanent link on the left or in your email from Mike.

 NL STANDINGS  

 East     GP   W   L   GB   Pct 
*Chi      26  18   8    -  .692 
 Atl      25  12  13  5.5  .480 
 Mil      26  12  14    6  .462 
 Flo      26   6  20   12  .231

 West     GP   W   L   GB   Pct
*Col      23  16   7    -  .696 
 LAD      25  15  10    2  .600 
 StL      23  11  12    5  .478 
 SF       26  10  16  7.5  .385 

 Wildcard GP   W   L   GB   Pct 
*LAD      25  15  10    -  .600 
*Atl      25  12  13    3  .480 
 StL      23  11  12    3  .478 
 Mil      26  12  14  3.5  .462 
 SF       26  10  16  5.5  .385 
 Flo      26   6  20  9.5  .231 

Expanded Rosters?

With the trade deadline approaching that means that roster expansion to 30 players would happen for series 13. Question is do we want to expand the rosters for this season? It's a short season so it would only be for 4 games and we know the computer game doesn't allow expanded rosters.

What do ya all think? It would be nice to have those extra players but I don't think it would be worth it for this season. Next year, with the longer season, we could try and work out the kinks.

NL Trading Deadline

The trading deadline is upon us in the National League. The deadline follows the completion of series 10 (Aug. 28). Our actually deadline I think should be Saturday afternoon (3:00 PM?).

...I'm still in need of backup catcher.

MLB opening day today

Baseball's Back! The 2006 MLB season starts tonight at 8:05 with the Indians taking on the White Sox. The Jays don't start until Tuesday when Halladay goes up against Santana and the Twins.

Back in our league, my Detroit Tigers took two straight from Norm's Angels on Friday night in two close games. That's five wins in a row and 8 of the last nine - not bad for a 1-5 start. (Although I have to admit there were a couple of easy teams in there, first Kansas City then Mike's Blue Jays...)

Firefox Add-ons

I've put together a list of helpful baseball related add-ons for the Firefox web browser.

First up is a list of search bar engines:

ESPN MLB Player
Baseball Reference
Rotoworld Baseball
Baseball Cube
Alex Reisner Baseball Stats

If you have other sites that you'd like a search plugin for let me know in the comments and I'll make one up for that site.

Now that you've installed all those search bar plugins, a quick way to search player names is to highlight a players name within a web and right click and select the "Web Search for" option. This will search using the search engine that is showing in your search bar.


A handy extension to search selected text from any of your installed search engines instead of just the default is the Context Search extension.


Search Engine Ordering is an extension that lets you arrange your search engine plugins in any order and delete unused ones with a right click.


I'll add to this list if I think of any other helpful extensions or tips.